


All the Nightmares (Here to Stay)

by InsertSthMeaningful



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Charles Xavier Can Walk, Disabled Character, Genosha, Head Injury, Injury Recovery, M/M, Near Death, X-Men: First Class (2011)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:41:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28154022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsertSthMeaningful/pseuds/InsertSthMeaningful
Summary: On that fateful day in 1962, on a Cuban beach, Charles successfully pulls Shaw's helmet off of Erik's head. Moira still takes the shot - and changes the course of mutant history.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Comments: 12
Kudos: 54
Collections: Secret Mutant Madness 2020





	All the Nightmares (Here to Stay)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [midrashic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/midrashic/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [midrashic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/midrashic/pseuds/midrashic) in the [secret_mutant_madness_2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/secret_mutant_madness_2020) collection. 



> I'm not an angst writer so I had the hardest time writing this (and am still not satisfied with the outcome), BUT the idea intrigued me (yes, this is the writer version of the "started making it; had a breakdown; bon appétit" meme). In my defence, I was enabled by [hllfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hllfire) ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> I was also too impatient to run this by a beta so please forgive any potential mistakes :) and please do heed the warnings in the tags if you're sensitive to near-death situations.  
> Title taken from David Bowie's _Oh You Pretty Things_ , though I prefer [Lisa Hannigan's cover](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWF3pudZxCI). 
> 
> **Prompt:**
> 
> AU where it's Erik, not Charles, who gets injured on the beach.

Erik is holding the missiles at the very tips of his fingers – the deaths of a thousand seamen and soldiers, one twitch of a muscle away – and Charles is once again shouting for him to let go.

_Let it go! You have to let it go!_

_Never again._

He has not come this far to yield now. The taste of adrenaline is sour on his tongue, and so is the fear of the men on the ships. Erik can feel their nervous heartbeats, their blood rushing through their veins as they brace for certain death, and he relishes its fury.

In his grip – ever-expanding, all-powerful, just like Charles said – the rockets hum eagerly, now only seconds away from impact-

A body careens into him, sends him flying into the sand scattered with splinters of crushed palm trees. It’s Charles, grappling at Shaw’s helmet with his desperate hands, his desperate, desperate pleading eyes, and Erik thinks, _I don’t want to hurt you._

Of course, Charles doesn’t hear. He can’t. Instead, he gets the tips of his fingers under the helmet’s rim and pulls.

Erik is too slow – by the time his elbow is crashing into Charles’ ribcage and knocking the air out of him, the only protection between him and the telepath’s power is lying in the sand, useless, a piece of junk.

But Erik can still make it count. He has to. At the back of his head, he can feel the missiles fall, popping open like the buds of precocious spring flowers.

“I don’t wanna hurt you,” he snarls, indifferent to the spit flying off his lips, “don’t make me.”

 _Please_ \- And Charles is inside his head, eyes unfocused as he rummages around for whatever it is he hopes to find.

Though Charles is stronger than him, heavier than him, he is distracted. Erik bucks his hips, gets Charles off-balance, hurls him into the sand and onto his back. Charles’ cheekbone gives a sickening crunch when Erik’s fist connects with it, and instantly, the telepath’s hold on his mind slackens and dissipates. Buying time.

Erik scrambles to his feet, throws up a hand – “Back off!” – and the boys shout as they are propelled backwards. Only Raven remains standing. Though she appears to be wearing a flightsuit, there is no metal whatsoever to be found on her body.

Clever girl. Erik doesn’t understand why Charles won’t give her the same treatment he gives him.

With the mere wisp of a thought, he renews his hold on the missiles which are still intact, guides them back onto their rightful course. On the ground, Charles is moaning, mind grappling for Erik’s – and sliding off, though it would be so easy to give in, to feel that peace, that serenity. And yet, Erik knows he must’ve killed Charles’ love for him when he drove that coin through Shaw’s head.

A gun is cocked to his left, close to Moira’s dog tags.

It doesn’t matter. All that matters are the humans on their ships, and the rockets speeding towards them, intent on killing, on death, on destruction, on _justice_ -

A deafening blow to his left temple.

A blinding white pain shooting through Erik’s forehead.

The world – the beach, the waves, the blue, blue sky – judder in their moorings and tilt sideways.

At first, Charles thinks Erik is just being dramatic when he crumples to the ground beside him. Somehow, it’s just what Erik would do – attack two naval army fleets at once, and with their own projectiles no less, before he mimes the attacked, calling it a tactical retreat.

Then, Charles sees the blood. And nothing is ever okay anymore.

Erik doesn’t scream. He doesn’t plead, he doesn’t even beg, doesn’t make a sound as Charles crawls over to him, head still spinning from Erik’s blow, and gathers him into his arms. He is limp – in a strange moment of clarity, Charles is reminded of the old, ratty ragdoll Raven would drag everywhere when she was ten, until one day she lost it in the pond and cried until morning – and his head lolls back at an almost unnatural angle before Charles can cup its back and stare.

And stare. And stare. 

At the entrance wound the bullet has left, haloed by a steadily trickling of blood. At Erik’s hair, matted by the sticky crimson, soaking the fingertips of Charles’ gloves. At Erik’s lips, pale, bloodless – yet once so beautiful, so sensual around Charles’ name over a game of chess, around Charles’ cock between the sheets, around that rare, rare smile which would only blink up once in a blue moon.

Gone. Charles’ breaths are coming in short, quick bursts, his heart beating a staccato against his ribs, fast, faster, until he thinks it will- what? Cave? Explode? _Shatter?_

“No,” he chokes out, that terrible, _terrible_ feeling of detachment, of surrealism prying at his mind, begging him to make believe that this is all a horrible, horrible dream, a nightmare.

Erik – his love, his darling – is cradled dead in his arms, eyes wide open in frozen surprise. He can’t shake it. He wants to believe Erik’s chest heaves and falls because he’s alive, not because Charles’ knees are shaking in the sand. He wants to believe Erik’s head trembles because he has trouble holding it up, not because Charles' own hands are weak, _weak_ with the failure of _keeping the man he loves safe_.

The bullet. Though only one tiny piece of high-velocity metal, it has wiped out the clear, hierarchic structure of Erik’s mind, flushed it clean. And where it comes from, there must be more.

 _Moira_.

Unable to pry his eyes from Erik’s unblinking ones, Charles homes in on the woman’s frantic thoughts.

_You._

As he lifts his fingers to his temple, he hates how even his very thoughts are shaking. Moira, like a deer caught in the headlights, stares at him as he looks through her eyes upon the two of them, thoughts jumbled and confused and oh-so scared. She knows what’s coming next.

_You did this._

There’s a mess of apologies, of insistent pleading, a flurry of angry justifications. Charles brushes them all aside, the salt of his own tears stinging his lips. When did he start crying? It doesn’t matter.

 _I’m sorry_. His guilt eats into his heart. He _is_ sorry, he truly is, and he knows Moira is a good woman, but what if she, in her goodness, turns that gun on Charles? On one of the boys? On _Raven?_

In the distance, Raven shouts as Moira staggers and falls to her knees, hazel eyes unseeing. Sean is shrieking.

_I’m sorry, but you are a danger to us and everyone around._

Moira screams. It echoes around the hollow of Charles’ chest – right where his heart used to be before Erik Lehnsherr took it and strung it up next to his own – and out over the bay, against the broken shells of the Blackbird and the sub.

Agony is one thing. The walls of your mind crumbling in on each other, however, is an entirely new kind of torture.

Moira doesn't stop screaming, silently now, and Charles keeps the others at bay as he kneels there with Erik’s broken body cradled close to his chest. Angel is terrified, Raven incredulous, Sean angry. Charles just gives in to the sobs wracking his body, to the tears pouring down his face, knowing that once it starts, you have to wait until it’s over - until your grief unfurls its fingers from between your ribs and recedes into your head where it will curl up to make itself at home, never to leave again.

The sun-warmed sand is unyielding beneath his knees. Erik shakes in his arms, rocked by Charles’ sobs, by Charles’ pleas for him to get better, pliable almost as though he’s sleeping.

Fingers trembling, Charles cups Erik’s cheek and presses their foreheads together.

_Please. Please, just this once, let it not be the end._

And he hears.

He hears what he thought he would never hear again, and it’s glorious.

He hears a whisper. A wisp of a thought, barely there – but _there_.

_Charles._

Erik’s breath – weak, so painfully weak – bursts against Charles’ lips, cools their teary wetness. Charles stalls his gasps, chokes on his sobs - but he needs to be certain, he needs to _know_ that the flutter of Erik’s eyelids, the dwindling warmth of his mind is not just all in his imagination.

Then, from somewhere beneath his hands comes the faint beating of Erik’s heart, and Charles spurs into action.

“You,” he croaks, snapping his fingers at the Russian teleporter without looking up, “ _Come_ _here_.”

He senses Raven’s horror as she watches the man comply, blank-eyed, but he could not care less right now. This is Erik. Erik is worth any break of trust.

“The New York Hospital. _Now_.”

The teleporter takes hold of Charles’ shoulder, and the last thing he sees before he and Erik are whisked away through the ether is Moira collapsing onto the sand, a steady flow of blood trickling from her nose.

Azazel doesn’t like the smell of the hospital. It tickles his nose, tastes of detergent, of stale tears, of last breaths. It reeks of resignation – and Azazel has never been one to resign himself.

At the back of his head, he’s faintly aware that he could teleport from this place any time he wanted. He could furrow his brow and vanish in a puff of smoke, leave all the staring nurses and gaping doctors behind in their pig-eyed stupor.

But for a reason he can’t place, he wants to keep the blue-eyed man in the chair next to him company. There’s blood on the boy’s black gloves, a crimson smudge on his pale cheeks, sand in his tousled auburn hair. His eyelids are swollen, red from crying. Just like Azazel’s tail won’t stop twitching, the man’s hands will come up every odd heartbeat or so to wipe at his eyes even though they have long since run dry.

A clatter comes from behind the grey door in front of which they are sat. A commotion of voices follows, then the noise dies back down and the light jazz from before resumes playing, probably on a radio.

The boy heaves a dry sob and buries his head in his hands. Azazel hasn’t felt pity in a long, long time – he can’t afford it – but the sight almost moves him to pat the man’s knee.

The door to the surgery swings open wide before he can give in to the urge. A tall, pale-eyed man in the pristinely white attire of a doctor strides out before he halts in his tracks in front of the boy with the bloodied gloves, not even giving Azazel a second glance. It’s almost like he can’t see him.

“Mr Xavier?”

The boy lifts his head. His voice is small and brittle when he whispers, “Yes?”

“Doctor Strange.” The tall man in white smiles, offers his hand to shake. “You brought the headshot victim in?”

Xavier doesn’t take the offered hand. “Yes. Yes, I did.”

“Well, first off, the good news: Your friend could be doing worse. It’s really remarkable how fast you got him here – like almost no time went by between him getting shot and you showing up at the emergency!” The doctor rubs his hands, smiling. Azazel doubts that he’s the kind of man who asks after others’ feelings. “Now, of course, we should not be moved to make promises we can’t hold, but if the patient remains stable-”

Fresh tears shimmer in the man’s blue eyes when he puts two fingers to his temple as though rubbing away an itch. “Just tell me the bad news, please.”

Doctor Strange complies.

Azazel listens with growing pity.

Afterwards, he _does_ reach out and awkwardly pat Xavier’s knee. The boy is sobbing his heart out again, and quietly, Azazel whispers, “There, there,” amazed by the quantity of tears a human body can come up with.

⨂

Charles finds Erik in his favourite spot behind the boat sheds, in a hollow between the dune grass. He’s lying on his side, nestled into the sand as he sketches the head of a young seagull.

At first, Charles doesn’t have the heart to disturb him. He watches from the shadow of the boathouses, arms crossed with the sleeves of his shirt rolled up against the heat, eyes trained only on the man he calls husband. It’s so rare nowadays to see Erik get a minute of rest – in fact, it’s astonishing that he is alone at all and not down by the water with the kids, playing in the surf, making sure they don’t drown or get stung by jellyfish. But Charles knows that working daily at Genosha’s construction sites and in the daycare must be taxing.

Erik deserves a quiet moment. If it was up to Charles, he’d get all the quiet moments he wanted. Alas, they are running a fledgling mutant nation which needs a guiding hand.

There’s a tug at the wristband of his old, ratty stainless-steel watch, and when Charles’ eyes refocus, he sees that Erik has his head turned and is smiling at him. Before Charles can sign a short _Hello_ , Erik is perched over his sketchbook again, scribbling away with intent.

Charles watches the movements of his husband’s beautiful, beautiful slender hands, and the white shirt clinging to his tanned back, sweat-soaked. Though the sky is clouded over, milky white like frosted glass, the cool sea breeze brings no real relief from the heat.

Charles sighs, mops the sweat from his brow and top of his head with the back of his lower arm. Even having gone bald virtually overnight and decades ago at that, he is still much less accustomed to the Genoshan climate than other mutants.

A rustle tears him out of his reverie. Erik has twisted back around and is brandishing a page of his sketchbook with a grin that promises trouble.

Charles’ eyes widen when he takes in Erik’s artistry, and a distinct sense of _I just like it, who could possibly blame me_ flutters over from his husband’s side, untainted with remorse. On the sketch page, a few rough lines come together to form Charles’ broad torso – the top of his shirt lewdly unbuttoned, his arms crossed and more muscular, shapelier with Erik’s imagination.

Charles blushes. If any of the children were to suddenly barge in on them now-

With a few quick strides, he’s closed the distance between them, is kneeling down by Erik’s side and gathering him into his arms. Erik laughs silently – the sound is pure bright-orange happiness, a burst of sun in the surrounding bleakness – and lets him. His fingers dig into Charles’ shoulders, his stubble rubs against Charles’ jaw as they kiss, his legs fall open to accommodate Charles between them.

It’s almost an honour that Erik would let Charles bear him down against the sand, won’t stop him from working open the collar of Erik’s shirt so he can pepper his devotion all over the top of Erik’s shoulders. Ever since the incident, Erik shies away from touches. Charles is the exception.

 _Beautiful._ Lips sweat-slick, Erik keens into their kiss and reaches around to grab Charles’ arse, pulling their hips flush together. _Gorgeous. I have the best husband._

Charles doesn’t let the pang that runs through him at Erik’s words stop him. Yes, the guilt still eats away at his heart – every day, every night, every time Erik praises him or even so much as shoots him a smile. No matter what would have happened if he had let Erik keep the helmet, he wouldn’t have regretted it as much as letting his love get hurt in front of his eyes.

Erik is okay now – apart from the headaches, the seizures, his inability to form more than a few words at a time, which can all be handled because they have found friends and family and each other - but Charles would give anything. Anything to turn back the hands of the clock, anything to spare his darling the pain, the frustration, the struggle of recovery. Anything.

⨂

Charles despises the smell of disinfectant - this much he has learned over the week in which Erik has been fluttering between the worlds, unconscious even in his best moments. He feels like he’s been waking by his darling’s side for years now.

His stomach feels queasy every time he takes a glance at the bandages around Erik’s head. Once, he was present when a nurse changed them. The next moment, Charles found himself hanging over the rim of the toilet in the small adjoined bathroom, retching his guts out.

How could he have been so foolish? How could he have been so naïve to think he knew what was best for Erik – for their people?

Well, he still has a whole lifetime to gnaw away at his guilt.

To calm his racing mind, he takes Erik’s limp hand in his and starts massaging it. Erik’s hands are always cold nowadays – and always a welcome distraction, with their blue pallor and the veins that stand out on their backs. They’re beautiful, handsome. That one time Doctor Strange walked in on Charles kissing Erik’s knuckles, he shot Charles an almost sympathetic glance of understanding before what he had seen vanished into oblivion – Charles has found that he has grown too weary to take prisoners, and his telepathy is quick to take care of potential risks.

Now, he gently cradles Erik’s hand and brings it to his cheek. The warmth of his flushed face spikes appreciation in Erik’s mind, but his breathing remains even, and his eyelashes don’t flutter.

Charles watches as dust particles dance in the golden sunlight setting Erik’s shaven ginger hair ablaze.

“MC1R,” he murmurs, and Erik’s dozing mind stirs at the sound of his voice. “How gorgeous. You, my friend, are destined for great things – if only you would wake up.”

The quiet background hum of Erik’s sleep persists. And Erik lies still and breathes – in, out, in and out.

Charles laughs softly, tears stinging in his eyes. At least Erik still has breath in his lungs. God forbid what would have happened otherwise – well, a murder probably, with Moira in the reach of Charles’ mind and no one there to stop him, but Charles prefers the alternative.

The hammering of heels on the linoleum floor outside filters through the walls, and Charles recognises the nurse’s intent just before she bursts through the door. Inconspicuously, he lets Erik’s hand slide from his grip and diverts her attention to his face.

“Call for you, Mr Xavier.”

“I’ll take it.” When he gets up, he almost stumbles – sitting in the same position for hours with one leg crossed over the other makes for pins and needles. “Thank you.”

But the nurse is already out of the door again. Charles sighs in relief – his suggestion to stay as briefly as possible in Erik’s room seems to have taken constant hold in the hospital staff’s mind.

One hand on the doorframe, he glances one last time at Erik’s still form on the bed, swathed in blankets and framed by sunlight. As safe and sound as one can be after receiving a bullet to the head. Then, quietly, he slips out into the hallway, shuts the door behind himself and makes his way over to the vacant phone.

“Charles Xavier, how can I help you?” he says, almost choking on the irony of taking this call in the same manner as if he was at home in his study, at his desk with Erik perched in one of the armchairs, reading Charles' thesis.

“Charles?” And of course it’s Raven – she’s the one handling the kids, Shaw’s goons and the mansion for as long as it takes Erik to recover. “We have a problem.”

Charles stifles a shout when he turns around from closing the door to Erik’s room.

Erik is watching him, his pale eyes wide open, his mind strung taut like a feather with panic. Charles’ heart starts clamouring in his throat.

“Erik.” Charles’ feet have a mind of their own as they carry him across the room to Erik’s bedside, and he feels his knees turn to jelly when he sits down on the mattress to cover Erik’s hand with his. “Erik, you’re awake. You can’t imagine how glad I am-”

Erik blinks up at him, something akin to comprehension sparking in his mind, and opens his mouth. Not a sound comes out.

“Now, don’t you worry.” Charles forces a smile, laces their fingers together. “Your recovery will take time, but you’ll make it. I know you will, Erik. Now squeeze my hand if you can hear me.”

It takes a few heartbeats, but then Charles feels the blessed pressure of Erik’s fingers around his own. He pushes a shuddery sigh – all that remains is holding back the tears of relief.

“I missed you so much,” he whispers. “You scared me a lot, Erik. You left, and I thought you were gone forever.”

Erik frowns up at him, still dazed from the pain medication they’ve been giving him. His right eyelid is sagging - a consequence of the greater extent of injury to his left frontal lobe. His mind is a litany of jumbled words, smells, sounds, sensations, and yet he homes in on Charles’ smile with a clarity that strikes something primal in Charles. He can only do so much to keep from gathering Erik into his arms and destroying anyone who dares to come near.

“I’ll keep you safe,” he promises, voice low and intimate as he brings Erik’s hand up to murmur against his knuckles. “I will, Erik, and if I have to turn my world upside down for you.”

Then, he rings for a nurse and watches as Doctor Strange hurries into the room, checks the dilation of Erik’s pupils, takes his pulse, pokes and prods him. All through the procedure, Erik holds onto Charles’ hand for dear life, his breathing hurried and scratchy.

Their ‘problem’, as Raven has called it, has faded into the background. For now, they are safe – Charles and Erik here in the hospital, the others in the mansion, and soon, Charles will get to bring Erik home. Recovery will be a rocky path, but one they will walk with joint forces.

They can deal with Moira’s desertion and the human CIA later, Charles tells himself. There is nothing to worry about. Whatever the humans do, it couldn’t possibly be as devastating as what they have already done to Erik.

⨂

The panic of a dozen million mutant minds is thrumming through the streets, and Charles can already feel a nosebleed coming on.

By his side, Erik stands tall and proud, an unnerved scowl on his face. The breeze blowing in from the sea ruffles his hair, batters against his protective armour as he stands watching over the waves.

 _Sentinels_ , his thoughts are chanting, _they've come to battle and destroy._

“Thank you, darling.” Charles shuffles his feet in the sand and pushes a weary sigh. The line of mutants gathered on the beach is unbroken as of yet, but he has a ghastly feeling that Erik will be right in the end.

After all these years. After all this time of persecution and senseless negotiation, the humans have at last come for them and their children, for the mutants who were being rounded up on the street and have found a better home here, on Genoshan soil. And all this solely because of the word of a woman who got a tad bit too close to killing a telepath’s _everything_ and had to be punished for it.

“We should have shut her up when we still had the chance,” Raven whispers by his side, reading his regrets from his face like an open book. “She told them everything.”

Charles swallows. There’s no denying that.

“She was a friend,” he mutters, even as Erik laces their fingers together and the memories come flooding back.

Raven huffs and turns away to walk the line of their warriors, giving out words of courage and compassion. She’s always been better at pep talks than Charles.

Erik’s hand on his shoulder diverts his attention from the horizon. His husband, beautiful even in full battle gear, looks at him with an intensity Charles almost can’t stand.

Yes, Erik might be unable to plan ahead without help or to read more than a few pages per day, but he is just as human – as _mutant_ – as before. And after all these years, he knows Charles better than Charles knows himself.

_Please don’t stay._

_I will fight for our people, Erik._ Charles takes a deep breath, swallows down the panic which threatens to overwhelm him. _I put them on this island. I defend them. There are others like me, more powerful, better learned – I’m dispensable._

Erik lets go of Charles’ hand, just to cup his cheek instead. _Not to me. Please, Charles. Evacuate with the others._

But Charles can’t. He won’t say it, but- what if he turns his back on Erik now, only to emerge hours later to his husband’s broken body lying in the sand? He doesn’t want a repeat of last time. It’s hardly conceivable in this very moment, of course - the strange turn their lives could take. After all, hope dies last.

And yet, there’s always the _what if_. Always.

Charles cups Erik’s jaw, presses their foreheads together. Erik croons comfortingly, wiping away the tears which threaten to spill as Charles’ thumb rubs over the indentation the bullet has left in Erik’s temple.

This second chance. This second chance which has been given to his love, Charles will defend with all he has.

**Author's Note:**

> Hllfire pointed out that Moira's first shot on the beach caught Erik slap bang in the head because he was so distracted by keeping the missiles in the air. If it hadn't been for the helmet, the Cuba Beach Divorce would've gone quite differently. 
> 
> Kudos and especially comments will be met with love!


End file.
